Worship Together Blog

New Song: "Jesus Saves" from Tim Hughes

Listen to "Jesus Saves," the brand new song from Tim Hughes! Make sure to download the Free Chord Chart as well.

Listen to the song:

Download the chord chart for this great new song!

Gear Corner: Blue Snowball USB Mic

Want to turn your office or bedroom into a studio for $100?  Blue Microphones has developed a USB condenser microphone that is an all-in-one solution for a number of applications.  The mic is called the Snowball.  We got a couple of these for our studio here at the office.  The intent was to provide them for our writers so they could create quick demos in their writing sessions. Immediately, I realized how useful these little mics could be. They are so simple, and the cool factor is a 10!

Gunk & Gutie Gear Review: Blue Snowball USB Mic from Worship Together on Vimeo.

Listen to a demo of Matt Maher's "Lay It Down" that we made in 10 minutes using the Snowball:

How It Works
To start, there are no drivers or software to install. It is a true plug and play product.  Second, this is a studio grade condenser microphone.  The quality is far beyond anything else in this price range, costing just $100.  Third, there is nothing else to buy.  There are no XLR cables and no interface. Everything you need comes in the box.  The Snowball even comes with a sweet little desktop mic stand.

If you are a Mac user, plug in the USB cable, open up Garageband, and create a new “real instrument” track. Then go to preferences/Audio-midi, and select the Snowball as your audio input. That’s it; you are ready to go.  If you are a PC user, just plug in the USB cable, choose the Snowball as your sound recording device in the control panel, and open up your audio software of choice.

Potential uses for the Snowball
I would imagine a lot of you are worship leaders that have either written, or thought about writing songs.  You can use this mic to create quality recordings of your songs to burn to a CD or record ideas and melodies that are being developed.  My wife plays piano and sings, but she has trouble finishing songs simply because of time and unfinished lyrics.  While I have my studio set up in the next room, I don’t want to record her songs until they are finished.  Last night, I handed her the laptop and the Snowball and told her to demo her ideas.  At the end of the evening, she had 3 great sounding demos.  I can see the Snowball being used for a number of church applications as well.  It is perfect for podcasts, video voice-overs (for all those low budget church videos), as well as simply recording church services.

Get the Snowball, Recording Software & Headphones for $99
Now through the holidays Costco Online is offering the Snowball, Mackie Tracktion 3 Recording Software (a $100 value) and Koss UR40 headphones all for just $99! This deal won’t last forever.  It’s a $240 value, so we encourage you to go get it today!

A big shout out..

to my new friends at the CMS Conference in Redmond, WA who attended the "Raising Up the Next Generation of Worship Leaders" seminar.

You guys rock!

All CMS Redmond attendees...

come by and see me at the WorshipTogether booth. I will also be hosting a New Song Cafe Live seminar with Tim and Jon Neufeld of Starfield and Michael Watson from Above the Golden State. The seminar is scheduled for 11:30 am on Saturday.

I will also be teaching a seminar on Raising Up the Next Generation of Worship Leaders at 11:30 am on Friday.

Hope to see you there!

Don't let worship become a noun

It's very exciting to see the explosion of worship in the church at large. We get a taste of heaven when we experience powerful corporate worship. And once we have a taste, we can't forget the sweetness.

As musical worship has erupted over the last 25 years, it has become a main ingredient for most churches and there is an entire industry that has developed to support it. This is not a bad thing, but we must be careful not to let worship become a noun - this thing that we program and build our services around. Instead let the noun be who we are (worshipers) instead of something we plan.

Worship is something we will do for eternity in heaven. There, it will be only a verb.